Childhood Was I being a tease?

[Ihave_question]

Was I being a tease?
I think it started when I was around six and he was eight or nine, but he had been touching me for long I knew him. I don’t remember saying no I remember pushing him away a little bit sometimes and offering excuses like trouble or you need to go to the living room. He was a Cousin lived in a different state on my mom side so we only saw them during the summer. What confuses me is that I have perfectly normal memories of him and then it would just change we be playing regular kids and then he would get upset with me because we didn’t come the previous summer like we normally do even though I had no control over for that. He would say that I had to make it up to him.

I have one very distinct memories of him, kissing me tell me to open my mouth then me washing my mouth after he left repeatedly . but now that I’m an adult cannot help, but wonder why I would continue playing with him like I did the rest of my cousins. By the time I was 12 he started trying to push more and I started to resist more so he said that tell everything I let him do to me and say my parents wouldn’t allow us to come to that state anymore so my mom would never see her siblings again.

Around that same time my classmate (who was the only person who would talk to me in 7th grade when my entire grade decided to hate me for a full school year and then just stopped. He was also picked on, but he was generally chill.) started to touch me every civics class we were assigned to the back row since we were “less problematic” in a rowdy class. I think I might’ve been missing something cause it once again felt like we were just playing and talking normally and it started and I just continued to look at the board and try to move his hand away. I stopped going to the lunchroom because it was too much for me so I would sneak upstairs to my next class on the eighth grade floor to read since I knew it’d be empty.

Once he found me up there and began a normal conversation about I think picture day because it was the one day we weren’t in a uniform and I wore my favorite blue dress. Earlier that day in another class, we had watched a movie with my 2 friends and one gave me her sweatshirt to cover my legs So I could sit on the floor with them. He told me that I was always being the tease. I tried to leave politely after that(probably should’ve try to leave earlier) but this particular time he was more assertive instead of touching like before did shoved his fingers inside me. This messes me up alot when I think about it because I came and I didn’t want to, but I did which he saw and took out his fingers and gladly told me he knew I liked it and that there were other things he could put up there next time. I went and clean myself up that was the last time I wore that dress ever and never wore a dress to school for as long as I was there and any other time I wore shorts under my dresses.

At the same time, there was another boy almost 3 years older who I knew for at least 5 years and was dating my cousin/best friend. He was always normal before then we were working on homework in the back with his 6 year old sister while a meeting was going on because I had like 3 pounds of homework. As soon as his sister went to the storage to play with the decorations he started trying to touch me, I removed his hands he apologize we move on and then he start again, but being more aggressive, he was probably the most violent out of them because he actually hit me and choked me.

At some point his sister, who was like my little sister, came back around the corner, he just told me to get rid of her or he would continue with her watching so I asked her to go match all the fake flower decorations together with smile on my face. Once she left we continued to fight until he had me pinned, and was unfastening his pants ensuring me that it will only hurt if it wasn’t wet. Which scared me because I realized he didn’t plan on stopping but he was interrupted before he could do anything else because someone started to open the door to say that the meeting was over. He smiled like nothing happened and suggested that I keep it to myself, which I did though it didn’t stop for two more years.

I wanted to just drop it especially because I wasn’t actually raped but it’s hard sometimes to even lay on my stomach in the bed because I feel like someone’s hands are on my wrist or I feel like somebody is kissing or touching me and I can’t breathe. Sometimes when I start to drift off to sleep , I feel someone pull me out of my bed or lay with me, even though I know in reality there’s no one there. I didn’t have a lot of memories from that time, but I’m starting to remember more these days. The more I think about it the more I think that the common denominator in these situations is me. Four different people in four different places who don’t even know each other so I’m truly wondering what I could have done differently to dissuade them?

 

[parrotthepolly]

To answer your question: No, you were forced.

 

[Dark.Green.Feathers]

You were a child. Someone should have been looking out for you better, absolutely not your fault.

It doesn’t have to be rape to be sexual trauma. I think COCSA is one of the most confusing and self-punishment-triggering forms of trauma, because of all the loopholes we can invent to minimise or turn it on ourselves.

 

[Ihave_question]

You were a child. Someone should have been looking out for you better, absolutely not your fault.

It doesn’t have to be rape to be sexual trauma. I think COCSA is one of the most confusing and self-punishment-triggering forms of trauma, because of all the loopholes we can invent to minimise or turn it on ourselves.

What confuses me the most is that it was different people, different social circles with no connection to one another. Like it’s a hard thought to turn off but sometimes I start to think that I was giving off a bat signal or something because what are the chances. Generally, it’s a little difficult for me to pick up on cues so I just kinda wonder if I was giving off cues without knowing I was giving off cues because each of them seemed like normal interactions to me until they weren’t.

 

[WinnieThePoohChris]

Don't know if you got your answer or are gone. Its not your fault, you didn't do anything.

I find i tolerate more from others, mostly because my threshold is different, some take that as an excuse for bad behaviour or to take advantage.

Maybe the same or similar for you, it's them that are are in the wrong. Not you.

 

[Andrea292025]

What confuses me the most is that it was different people, different social circles with no connection to one another. Like it’s a hard thought to turn off but sometimes I start to think that I was giving off a bat signal or something because what are the chances. Generally, it’s a little difficult for me to pick up on cues so I just kinda wonder if I was giving off cues without knowing I was giving off cues because each of them seemed like normal interactions to me until they weren’t.

I don't know the exact reasons why, but it's a scientific fact that survivors of sexual assault & rape are more likely to experience it again. This also applies to survivors of child abuse. They are more likely to experience a similar violation again after it has happened to them once.

Here is an article about it. (I do feel like part of this article is victim-blaming in some of the reasons why that it gives out, but it quotes the statistic I was trying to find. And it does also state that the reasons given are theories)

The Repetition Compulsion: Why Rape Victims Are More Likely To Be Assaulted Again - Girls' Globe

In a society where the subject of rape is still taboo, the idea of even one attack is hard to grasp. The idea of multiple attacks seems far beyond probability. This makes it unimaginably hard for the considerable number of victims who do undergo multiple sexual assaults. It’s not an unusual...

www.girlsglobe.org

From what I have read, abusers and predators learn how to recognize vulnerable people who they think they will be able to target & "get away with it." I do not mean that any of it is your fault or another survivor's fault.

There is a book called The Gift of Fear that explains how people will rationalize behavior/signs that make them uncomfortable before something worse happens because of societal stigma against survivors & because most people want to see the good in others and expect them to be pretty trustworthy. Most people are actually very trusting even with new people, especially children. Predators take advantage of this trusting nature of humans.

If you are ever interested in the book (I believe it has a lot of true crime accounts just so you know), it gives advice -from an author who grew up in a lot of trauma and then worked in protection and how to prevent crimes- about how to recognize the small pre-incident warning signs that raise flags in your intuition and trust them & your gut instead of following the rationalizing thought. And advises that your safety is more important than not hurting someone else's feelings. It also explains how to tell the difference between anxiety (which can be irrational) & those gut signals.

Note that I bring this up in case you wanted to study how to recognize possible warning signs you may get that something is "off" in any interaction in general, I am not at all intending to blame you for the different instances mentioned or imply that every dangerous/harmful situation is preventable. The book basically teaches people to trust their instincts more when most people's first response is to justify or rationalize to themself when someone else does something that instigates a warning sign/gut reaction.

 

[HollowLavender]

Was I being a tease?
I think it started when I was around six and he was eight or nine, but he had been touching me for long I knew him. I don’t remember saying no I remember pushing him away a little bit sometimes and offering excuses like trouble or you need to go to the living room. He was a Cousin lived in a different state on my mom side so we only saw them during the summer. What confuses me is that I have perfectly normal memories of him and then it would just change we be playing regular kids and then he would get upset with me because we didn’t come the previous summer like we normally do even though I had no control over for that. He would say that I had to make it up to him.

I have one very distinct memories of him, kissing me tell me to open my mouth then me washing my mouth after he left repeatedly . but now that I’m an adult cannot help, but wonder why I would continue playing with him like I did the rest of my cousins. By the time I was 12 he started trying to push more and I started to resist more so he said that tell everything I let him do to me and say my parents wouldn’t allow us to come to that state anymore so my mom would never see her siblings again.

Around that same time my classmate (who was the only person who would talk to me in 7th grade when my entire grade decided to hate me for a full school year and then just stopped. He was also picked on, but he was generally chill.) started to touch me every civics class we were assigned to the back row since we were “less problematic” in a rowdy class. I think I might’ve been missing something cause it once again felt like we were just playing and talking normally and it started and I just continued to look at the board and try to move his hand away. I stopped going to the lunchroom because it was too much for me so I would sneak upstairs to my next class on the eighth grade floor to read since I knew it’d be empty.

Once he found me up there and began a normal conversation about I think picture day because it was the one day we weren’t in a uniform and I wore my favorite blue dress. Earlier that day in another class, we had watched a movie with my 2 friends and one gave me her sweatshirt to cover my legs So I could sit on the floor with them. He told me that I was always being the tease. I tried to leave politely after that(probably should’ve try to leave earlier) but this particular time he was more assertive instead of touching like before did shoved his fingers inside me. This messes me up alot when I think about it because I came and I didn’t want to, but I did which he saw and took out his fingers and gladly told me he knew I liked it and that there were other things he could put up there next time. I went and clean myself up that was the last time I wore that dress ever and never wore a dress to school for as long as I was there and any other time I wore shorts under my dresses.

At the same time, there was another boy almost 3 years older who I knew for at least 5 years and was dating my cousin/best friend. He was always normal before then we were working on homework in the back with his 6 year old sister while a meeting was going on because I had like 3 pounds of homework. As soon as his sister went to the storage to play with the decorations he started trying to touch me, I removed his hands he apologize we move on and then he start again, but being more aggressive, he was probably the most violent out of them because he actually hit me and choked me.

At some point his sister, who was like my little sister, came back around the corner, he just told me to get rid of her or he would continue with her watching so I asked her to go match all the fake flower decorations together with smile on my face. Once she left we continued to fight until he had me pinned, and was unfastening his pants ensuring me that it will only hurt if it wasn’t wet. Which scared me because I realized he didn’t plan on stopping but he was interrupted before he could do anything else because someone started to open the door to say that the meeting was over. He smiled like nothing happened and suggested that I keep it to myself, which I did though it didn’t stop for two more years.

I wanted to just drop it especially because I wasn’t actually raped but it’s hard sometimes to even lay on my stomach in the bed because I feel like someone’s hands are on my wrist or I feel like somebody is kissing or touching me and I can’t breathe. Sometimes when I start to drift off to sleep , I feel someone pull me out of my bed or lay with me, even though I know in reality there’s no one there. I didn’t have a lot of memories from that time, but I’m starting to remember more these days. The more I think about it the more I think that the common denominator in these situations is me. Four different people in four different places who don’t even know each other so I’m truly wondering what I could have done differently to dissuade them?

No you weren't a tease or anything like that. I can relate to you so much. I was assaulted at 10 and raped 3 times as an adult. You were forced and no one deserves what happened to you. You were a child and it's their fault they assaulted you. I know it's horrifying but women who are assaulted typically have it happen again statistically. It's hard to not blame yourself and I still do blame myself but learning to accept you didn't have control of that situation helps. You are not at fault I hope you learn that. If you ever need to talk I'm in a similar situation.

 

[whiteraven]

So I wonder if you would consider another 5- or 6-year-old a sexual tease in any case at any time? It's harder when we look at ourselves, but think about other children who have been abused and ask yourself if it was there fault...ever?